Jack Cashill

Cashill was born and raised in Newark, New Jersey, to William and Frances Cashill. He graduated from Regis High School in New York City, then graduated from Siena College with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He then earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in American studies in 1982 from Purdue University. His doctoral dissertation at Purdue was titled, "The capitalist as hero in the American novel".^[3] He is of Irish descent.^[4] He has written for Fortune, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Weekly Standard. He has taught media and literature at Purdue and at other universities in the Kansas City area.^{[citation needed]}

Cashill, in the book Deconstructing Obama (2011), promoted the theory that Bill Ayers, co-founder of the militant radical left-wing organization Weather Underground, had authored President Barack Obama's autobiography Dreams from My Father.^[5][6][7] A review by Craig Fehrman in The Washington Post argued that "Cashill’s clues are far from convincing" on the supposed involvement of Ayers; Fehrman also described the book itself as being "grotesque, delusional and paranoid".^[1] Eric McHenry, writing for Salon accused Cashill of believing "Obama’s entire life is one massive fraud" and exclusively applying this notion to Obama's writings; Cashill had claimed at least one of Obama's few poems were really the work of Frank Marshall Davis.^[8]

TWA 800: The Crash, The Cover Up, The Conspiracy, a book written by Cashill, was published in July 2016 by Regnery. The Pitch described Cashill as a conspiracy theorist; he promotes the theory that TWA 800 was hit by a missile and doubted the veracity of Barack Obama's published birth certificate.^[9] First Strike (2003), Cashill's earlier book on the crash of TWA Flight 800, alleged the real cause had been covered up to stop Bill Clinton from losing the 1996 presidential election.^[5] In a 2004 documentary Mega Fix, he alleged additionally that cover-ups by President Clinton concerning the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the Atlanta Olympics bombing the following year, contributed to the September 11 attacks. He implies the 1995 and 1996 attacks were the actions of Islamic terrorists.^[5]